flume
/fluːm/
"flume" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“flume” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #36,562 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #36,562
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A ravine or gorge, usually one with water running through.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | flume |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /fluːm/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #36,562 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “flume” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for flume is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /fluːm/. Corpus data places it at rank #36,562 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for flume, with forms such as "fflume", "fllume", and "flmue". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "fuse", "flux", "fume", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English flum, from Old French flum, flun, from Latin flumen, from fluere (“to flow”). The correct English form is flume, spelled F-L-U-M-E.
Definition
- 1A ravine or gorge, usually one with water running through.
- 2An open channel or trough used to direct or divert liquids, especially to carry materials (logs, mined material, etc) or people (as a water slide), especially (but not always) one where the walls are raised above the surrounding terrain rather than recessed like a ditch.
Etymology
From Middle English flum, from Old French flum, flun, from Latin flumen, from fluere (“to flow”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: fflume,fllume,flmue,fluem,flumme,fulme,lfume
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of flume - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “flume”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-L-U-M-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /fluːm/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “fuse” - see the side-by-side comparison. flume vs fuse
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.